Fisherfolk have lived in Hong Kong’s protected bays and harbors for centuries. The Hong Kong Maritime Museum, with a great location near the Star Ferry in the Central Ferry Piers, concentrates on boating history of the South China coast and Hong Kong, with models and displays relating to boats, trade, maritime communication and more.

Exhibitions are divided into three galleries. The C-Deck starts with early Chinese maritime history, naval architecture and the sea trade, like the seven amazing voyages undertaken Zheng He (Zheng He@wikipedia) in the 1400s to Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India and other ports (his first voyage, to Vietnam, included a personnel of 27,000 people). Displays also explore China’s early contacts with foreign countries like Japan, Portugal, Spain and Holland, including the opium trade and opium wars (you’ll learn, for example, that after the opium wars, opium accounted for 46% of all imports into China by 1867). Other highlights include displays about sea bandits then and now (a simulator lets you shoot cannon at a pirate’s ship) and the creation and development of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour.